Is there a Scaramanga Character Inconsistency in TMWTGG (1974)?

Silhouette Man

This is something I noticed only earlier on this year after twenty years of watching The Man with the Golden Gun (1974) first on video cassette and then later on DVD and and most recently on Blu-Ray this year.

You see something bothered me about the characterisation of the main villain Francisco Scaramanga in this film. To me at least the film's script by Tom Mankiewicz and later Richard Maibaum seems a bit confused and muddled in places almost like it can't quite decide in itself what sort of film it wants to be. Of course the same could be said (only even more so) about the Mankiewicz/Maibaum script for Diamonds Are Forever (1971).

The thing that bothered me was what I can only now see as the character inconsistency in Scaramanga in the scene where he and Bond meet for the first time at the kickboxing stadium. Scaramanga has already assassinated his wayward mistress Andrea Anders for betraying him with Bond and for stealing his crucial MaGuffin the Solex Agitator. Then comes what I call the character inconsistency. Scaramanga half smiles at Bond once he has revealed his identity to him and goes on to say the following:

"Personally I've got nothing against you, Mr Bond, so let us hope that our paths never cross again. Please don't try to follow me."

Firstly, I know director Guy Hamilton encouraged his actors to take it "softly, softly" but I find how Nick Nick disappears before Bond offers him the peanuts to be very half-hearted Bond villainy and that little tidbit feeds into what I'm about to write next.

Now the inconsistency here is that we know that later on Scaramanga is expecting Bond to come to his private island at some point (e.g. "No, he won't be leaving", he says to the Chinese radar team) and of course he waxes lyrical about the clash of two titans, each with a 50-50 chance. Scaramanga even talks about a gentlemanly mano-a-mano duel to the death and how the killing of 007 would go down as one of the greatest duels/killings in all history. Now that is all very well but given what he says in that quote above doesn't his little speech seem very inconsistent with what went before. His speech in the kickboxing stadium is also inconsistent with the fact that he happily shoots the fingers off the mannequin (Why does he even have this?!) that he has of James Bond suggesting he would be his fantasy or ultimate kill. We can of course discount the golden bullet with '007' on it sent to M with Scaramanga's fingerprints on it as that was falsely sent by his mistress Andrea Anders but again even that suggests to the viewer than Scaramanga is out to assassinate Bond, later ratcheting up the tension in the Gibson assassination quite nicely.

Perhaps I have misunderstood something here so I'll leave it there and see what other members here think.

Barbel

Scaramanga has respect for Bond (referenced earlier in the movie by Andrea) and while he knows 007 is after the Solex (he spotted him at the Bottoms Up, he knows of his visit to Hai Fat) he doesn't take it personally till late on and doesn't want to simply shoot him from cover: he had more than one chance to do so, but that would have been too easy (his words). This is fairly true to the book, in which both Bond and Scaramanga have plenty of chances to simply shoot the other but decline to take advantage of it- Fleming explicitly comments on that at the end of Chapter 6.

Thunderpussy

On a technical point, as a sillly teen. I thought Mano a Mano meant " Face to face"
Only later discovering it meant " Hand to Hand" ) then I've always been a bit of
A Thicko ! See what watching Bond teaches you.

Barbel

Silhouette Man wrote:

the fact that he happily shoots the fingers off the manikin that he has of James Bond suggesting he would be his fantasy or ultimate kill.

Perhaps he's just excited (the subtext is that Scaramanga gets a thrill from killing) after shooting Rodney, and after picking up the fallen hood's gun which still has bullets in it (...hmm, must count how many bullets Rodney fires in the PTS, sometime) unlike his own gun, of course, he feels like a little more practice and faux faux seven was the handiest target.

heartbroken_mr_drax

Potentially Scaramanga is giving Bond a somewhat-friendly warning at the boxing place - he admits that he likes Bond and gives him a personal background - he's trying to increase the fear and bait him, but also express his admiration. This is something he continues to do at the island, but with a lot more menace.

Firemass

I don't notice any character inconsistencies in the scenes that Silhouette Man mentions. However, I find it odd that Scaramanga is so overwhelmingly friendly once Bond reaches the island. Also puzzling is how little Scaramanga knows about solar power.

I doubt Scaramanga wanted or expected Bond to actually follow him..however pushing Mary into the boot caused Bond to take pursuit. I've often wondered if Bond would have even bothered if not for Goodnight being taken captive with the solex. If I was Bond I would have just returned to base, so to speak.

Gassy Man

He's not so much friendly as being a good host -- and excited that he can finally face off against Bond in the manner in which he has been planning. He seems to have anticipated it would some day come to this as he has been practicing for many years.